NGOs, Terrorists and Some Thoughts About the Weak Link

...Anyone who thinks that the prime minister, as powerful as he may be, can withstand such a massive empire built over the course of so many years, is sadly mistaken. A prime minister is the sum average of all the different vectors of the state. We can stop this campaign against Israel's security and our righteous path only if we, as a society, support our government, refuse to yield and erect an iron wall of morality and values to ward off this group before they tear us apart.

Dror Eydar..
Israel Hayom..
27 June '14..

1. The man destined to become the biggest hero of ancient Greece was just a newborn when his mother, Thetis, baptized him in the River Styx. The water covered the baby's body and made him invulnerable -- except for his heel, by which his mother held him. Indeed, Achilles became a great hero, defeating the legendary Troy. But just before Troy was vanquished, Paris fired a poisoned arrow into Achilles' vulnerable heel, killing him. Since then, the term Achilles' heel has come to mean a point of weakness in any body, whatever it may be.

The Israel Defense Forces are big and strong. That is a well-known fact. But terrorism cannot be combated with conventional army warfare. Terrorism aims to sow fear and make people afraid of everyday tasks. The abduction of three boys while they make their way home from school is not "battle," as serious an incident as it may be. It is a strategic attack that has put an entire country on edge. It was the abduction of only two Israelis that sparked the Second Lebanon War.

It seems that as the years went by, the terror organizations managed to hone in on Israel's Achilles' heel: abductions. More than bombings. A bombing happens, then it is over. An abduction is an ongoing attack. Using psychological warfare and with the help of radical groups and useful idiots they ensure that the wound continues to bleed until the final objective is achieved: surrender and release of murderers. The same murderers who will mastermind the next attack, and, of course, the next abduction.

A successful abduction is the final link in a well-known chain. But the preceding links are not automatically associated with efforts to defeat Israel. Here's how this phenomenon may work:

2. The checkpoints set up in Judea and Samaria are there to catch wanted terrorists, to force terror operatives to take alternate routes and thus limit their freedom to travel from one place to another or to move weapons from one place to another. In other words, checkpoints are there to save Israeli lives. Contrary to the false "apartheid" propaganda, it is the Jews who are forbidden from traveling on certain roads, while the Palestinians are free to use any road they please. In certain places there are checkpoints, but most of them have been removed due to massive pressure applied by Machsom Watch and other leftist groups. The authorities called it a "calculated risk." One of the checkpoints that was removed used to be located on an inner Gush Etzion road linking the Jewish communities. It was from this road that the three boys were kidnapped two weeks ago.

The fewer the checkpoints, the greater the risks. When terrorists attack, a curfew is imposed on a specific area. Immediately the leftist groups cry out against what they describe as collective punishment of innocent people. It won't help to argue that the curfew (or blockade) is actually meant to apprehend the culprits and protect the population from unnecessary harm. After the horrific murder of the Fogel family in Itamar in March, 2011, Raya Yaron of Machsom Watch was filmed helping a woman in the village of Awarta in the northern West Bank. She was there with other left-wing activists to support the residents of the village as they faced IDF operations. The only thing was that the Palestinian woman turned out to be the mother of Hakim Awad, one of the Fogel family murderers.

NGOs vs. those who serve Israel by Caroline Glick

Caroline Glick..
Carolineglick.com..
10 May '13..

In 2010, Cpl. Eleanor Joseph became the first female Arab combat soldier in the IDF. Joseph, a Christian Arab told Ma'ariv that her good luck charm is a drawing of the Star of David with the caption: "I have no other land, even when my ground is burning." Her commander drew it for her.

Joseph explained, "It is a phrase that strengthens me. Every time I experience hardship, I read it. Because I was born here. The people I love live here: My parents, my friends. This is a Jewish state? Yes, it is. But it's also my country. I can't imagine living in any other place. I think every person should serve in the army. You live here? You make your home here? Then go defend your country. What does it matter that I'm an Arab?"

Joseph's story represents an incipient trend of integration among Israel's Arab community. Among other things, this is manifest in the consistently rising number of Israeli Arab students who elect to study in Hebrew-language schools and in the rising number of Israeli Arabs who elect to serve in national service, the civilian equivalent of military service.

A poll of Arab youth carried out in late 2007 made clear how widespread this integrationist impulse has become. Seventy-five percent of Arab youth aged 16 to 22 supported voluntary national service.

And yet, despite these sentiments and developments, Arab Israelis who seek to integrate into Israeli society and reject the separatist messages of their political leaders are forced to contend with extraordinary social pressures and even coercion to prevent them from acting in accordance with their wishes.

A study completed this week by Im Tirtzu exposes the vast array of NGOs generously funded by the supposedly pro-Israel New Israel Fund as well as by foreign governments which are running a campaign to oppose Cpl. Joseph and her comrades - Arabs and Jews alike. Since 1999, these groups have been conducting a campaign to undermine Arab integration into Israeli society specifically and to demoralize and reduce the social standing of those who serve in the IDF, national service and IDF reserves generally. The campaign is being carried out on a dual track of discouraging Israeli Arabs from serving in the IDF or national service, and of opposing government benefits to IDF veterans, reservists and those who undertook national service by claiming that these benefits unjustly discriminate against Israeli Arabs.

Im Tirtzu's report argues that the dual nature of the campaign, underwritten by the same funders, shows that the goal "is to prolong irredentism or non-integration of the Arab sector in order to encourage it to act as a sector demanding national recognition and advance the aim of transforming the State of Israel from a Jewish, democratic state into a bi-national state."

NIF's Old-New-No Funding Guidelines: Substance or Spin?

NGO Monitor
22 September '10

NGO funding provided by the New Israel Fund (NIF) has a major impact on Israeli politics and society. As documented by NGO Monitor, approximately one-third of its annual budget of $31 million goes to highly politicized groups involved in campaigns regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict, such as Adalah, Mossawa, Mada al-Carmel, the Coalition of Women for Peace, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, Yesh Din, and others. These organizations also receive substantial funding from European governments, whose officials often cite NIF’s “approval” as justification for promoting the NGO agendas and campaigns.

The central role of NIF-funded groups in the Goldstone report, and other indictments based on false allegations of “war crimes,” highlighted the core contradictions in the funding policies of an organization that proclaims its commitment to Zionism and love for Israel. NIF leaders initially denied responsibility, but donor protests and media criticism increased. In February 2010, NGO Monitor called on the New Israel Fund (NIF) to implement clear “red lines” regarding the funding of NGO activities and rhetoric, in particular to prevent support for the “Durban strategy” of isolating Israel internationally. In this vein, NGO Monitor formulated proposed “Ethical Guidelines for the New Israel Fund,” which were sent to NIF board members in advance of the June 28 NIF board meeting in Israel.

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NIF Israel head: we don't care what grantees say against our principles just what they do

Dr. Aaron Lerner
IMRA
20 September '10

"We allocate grants to whoever believes in the right of the Jewish People to self determination, and whoever sees Israel as a democracy, for everyone. If someone would act, not say something, but will act significantly against this principle and other principles of the NIF, I assume that he will not be entitled for a grant."
Rachel Liel, NIF-Israel Executive Director interviewed on Israel Radio's "Seder Yom" program

20 September 2010

In other words, a radical Israeli organization that openly and vocally opposes the right of the Jewish People to self determination - for example the Israeli Arab group Adallah, that calls for revoking the Law of Return that grants Jews from the Diaspora the right to Israeli citizenship if they immigrate to Israel, could continue to receive NIF funding since this is only "saying something"?

So just what exactly constitutes "acting"?

Lying down on the runway at Ben Gurion to block planes landing with Jewish immigrants?

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Some Insight's into Israel's Hard Left

Yaacov Lozowick
Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations
07 September '10

In my post yesterday about the Sabbar Kashur story I remembered wondering, back in July, where all the Israeli feminists were: The answer, it seemed obvious, being that they're lefties first, and feminists second. Well, today's Haaretz has a piece by Meirav Michaeli, one the most vocal and visible of our public feminists. She seems to say exactly that: her anger at imagined Israeli racism made her oblivious to what was really going on.

Here's another example of the hard left's willingness to play with facts in the service of ideology. The Geneva Initiative group have been running spots implying that Palestinians are eager to make peace with us, while it's the Israelis who've been interfering. There's nothing remarkable about this - it's the consensus in most Western media, with some notable exceptions - but these are Israelis trying to convince the majority of Israelis who know better because we've been closely watching the conflict all our lives, and we know people will die if we make the wrong decisions. Well, according to this story, the authors of the campaign haven't been careful with their facts, and the top Palestinian leaders they've been quoting object to being quoted.

Neither of these stories is particularly important on its own, though they fit a pattern. The hard left assumes the worst about us and sees themselves as the last bulwark of sanity, the lone campaigners who bear the burden of saving us from ourselves.

Nowhere is this more obvious than in the NIF and the organizations it supports. If you follow their newsletters, fund-raising pitches and publications, you'll easily be convinced that Israeli democracy is in dire straights, seriously threatened by forces that would do away with it were it not for them who are battling for our soul. The possibility that Israeli society is merely being its usual raucous democratic self seems not to occur to them, just as in previous years it was obvious to them that they alone understand and cherish human rights, or peace, or social well-being, or whatever value they choose to be the defenders of. In spite of their being highly educated people, they can't seem to appreciate that the rest of us may understand and indeed share the same values, while wishing to organize our communal life along different priorities.

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The Truth Behind the Foreign Workers Debate

Moshe Feiglin
Manhigut Yehudit
25 Menachem Av 5770
05 August '10

Ben Dror Yemini is one of the few voices in Israel's mainstream press that dares side with the government's decision to return a small portion of children of foreign workers to their home countries. In a courageous article that he published Tuesday morning, Yemini delineates the problem and bemoans the fact that the absolute majority of public opinion shapers in Israel have adopted the populist position, while leaving the weak sector of society to pay the price. Yemini accuses the media, who with no exception show the sweet, foreign-looking children begging in perfect Hebrew to remain in Israel - of being strong against the weak. "Let's see them making room in their luxury apartments for five illegal worker families, and then we can talk," Yemini wrote.

Yemini is right, but the source of the problem lies much deeper.

The assumption is that the foreign workers problem is a technical problem. According to this approach, they have their reasons for entering Israel, there are quite a few businesses and institutions in Israel that are happy to employ them - and the government must find the proper balance between the different interests and human and social problems that are created as a result.

But if we look to see who dominates the campaign against the banishment of the foreign children, we quickly discover that they are not the representatives of senior-citizens homes or farmers desperate for more working hands. In other words, the motivation of the leaders of the struggle against the government is not economic. It is ideological. Interestingly, it is the very same elements that encourage the expulsion of Jewish children from their homes. And no amount of Jewish children's tears will change their views.

At its root, this is not a case of spoiled populism of public-opinion shapers on the backs of Israel's poor. This is the tip of the ideological iceberg of something much larger than the question of illegal immigration.

It is no surprise that many of the NGOs lobbying in the Knesset against returning the foreigners to their countries are funded by the New Israel Fund. They want a new Israel: an Israel bereft of national identity, a state of all its citizens, a state that is not Jewish.

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